The Hands in Vaticanus graecus 909 (V of Euripides)
The Partner Scribes of V
Hand A (or VA) and Hand B (or VB) are those of the partner scribes who produced the
manuscript V in a complicated interaction. In the symbols used by Schwartz in his edition
of the scholia, where his siglum for Vaticanus graecus 909 is A instead of the more
currently accepted V, his A is my VA and his A1 is my VB.
For much of the manuscript A did most of the work (poetic text and marginal blocks of
scholia), and then B corrected and supplemented in places where A had difficulty
deciphering what must have been a damaged or faint original. But in some parts B wrote
entire pages or provided all the marginal scholia. The pattern of succession suggests that
B’s work often followed immediately on A’s and that A often did not continue further
until B had checked the previous work. Schwartz noted that from folio 118 on the codex
a duobus librariis paene alterna vice descriptus est, but gave no details. He judged that
when one corrected or supplemented the work of the other, the same exemplar was being
used by both. I believe that this hypothesis is likely to be correct.
The two hands are similar, and although sometimes B’s additions are obvious because the
ink is darker, in many places there is no strong difference between the appearance of the
inks used by A and B. Some of B’s glosses are in a very light ink, as on fol. 29r,
ὑπόσκηνον above Or. 147 ὑπώροφον and συγκλίθητι above Or. 149 κάταγε, where
we can also observe the later hands V2 and V3 working around the earlier gloss. Some of
B’s glosses are in extremely fine strokes, such as on fol. 3r, τῆς συντομίας above Hec.
33 ὅσονπερ, and καταγκοῦντες above Hec. 35 ἔχοντες (almost washed out). One can
also observe variations in the appearance of ink even when the same hand is involved:
e.g. on fol. 26v Hand A apparently wrote the top block of scholia first (sch. Hec. 51, sch.
Hec. 54, sch. Hec. 57), using the full width of the page, then continued with the lines of
the text (48-68) in a partial-width column beneath them, then added sch. 63 and a unique
sch. 57 at the top of the left-side column but in lighter ink; similarly, on fol. 26r, an
additional note (sch. 30 in its alternative form) has been added at the end of the scholia
block and its ink is lighter. Or for Hand B, compare sch. Or. 915 in the top block on fol.
50v, where the note is entirely written by B, but with a light brown ink for the lemma and
the usual blacker ink for the note itself; or sch. 626 on fol. 41v: the first line of the
scholion (lemma through ἔσχε δὲ παῖδας) was added by B in a blank space left by A, but
the last three words are in a yellower ink, not in the darker ink of the rest of the line.
The complexity of the alternation of these hands may be illustrated by a few examples.
There are places where it is clear that rubrication of the reference symbols preceded the
entry of supralinear notes by hand A (e.g. on fol. 31r above Or. 249 ἐπίσημον). A good
example of the sequence of entry appears at Or. 328 ὀρεχθεὶς ἔρρεις (fol. 33r): the
rubricator first placed the reference symbol over ρεχ of ὀρεχθεὶς, Hand A placed φθείρῃ
over ἔρρεις, B then added ἐπιθυμήσας over ὀρεχθεὶς, but had to crowd it in between
the ref mark and A’s gloss; V3 then wanted to extend ἐπιθυμήσας by adding the γάρclause found in the marginal scholion, and he had to start the addition above φθείρῃ.
D. J. Mastronarde, DRAFT, August 2013
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The Hands in Vaticanus graecus 909 (V of Euripides)
Characteristics of the Hands
The A hand presents a strong impression of compressed letters, closely spaced; also the
impression of a disciplined horizontal across the top of most letters, while the depth of
letters is more uneven. On the other hand, various enlarged letters are occasionally used:
e.g. some upsilons and omegas and phi loops are exaggerated in width.
Delta: usually upright, but occasionally with extended slant leftward of top loop.
Epsilon: majuscule epsilon slightly enlarged, less common than minuscule with closed
lower loop.
ει ligature: quite tall (also when circumflex accent joined to it).
εσ ligature: somewhat large.
ερ ligature: large ace-of-spades style with distinct point and usually a symmetrical
appearance.
Eta: tall when minuscule form is used (cf. kappa).
Iota: three or four different heights used for iota, from minimum small-letter height to
very tall above and below.
Kappa: enlarged both above and below line in the majuscule form and in epsilon-kappa
ligature; tall initial vertical when minuscule form is used (cf. eta).
Lambda: somewhat large.
Omicron: the ους ligature is written with a very pronounced horizontal element (the loop
may be open).
Sigma: occasionally a slim lunate sigma extending far above and below the line (esp.
word-initial followed by upsilon).
Tau: occasionally tall tau with only the leftward side of the cap.
Omega: both with the two loops open and with the two loops closed loops, normally with
the two parts symmetrical.
Accents: acute and grave accents usually rather long; tall flourish for acute when attached
to alpha or omega, for circumflex when attached to omega.
The B hand presents a less disciplined script, with wider spacing between letters. B
shows less variation in letter-heights in most interlinear items, but in the block scholia B
may randomly enlarge the circumflex, gamma, kappa, and the ει ligature.
Beta: tendency toward larger lower belly of beta vs. flatter smaller lower belly of A’s
beta (but this is not a consistent distinction).
Gamma: tall majuscule form.
Delta: The upper loop of delta may be upright or tilted to right; but delta is often written
with a pronounced backward-leaning upper loop.
Epsilon: in various forms, but all upright, all majuscule except in ligatures.
ερ ligature: large ace of spades style, but less pointed and less symmetrical than A’s
version.
εξ ligature: taller and wider than A’s, with three right side arcs aligned with a notional
upright tangent.
Zeta: with lower two-thirds consisting of almost straight lines at just under 90 degree
angle, with small circumflex-like upper part (whereas zeta in A is cursive and upright and
D. J. Mastronarde, DRAFT, August 2013
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The Hands in Vaticanus graecus 909 (V of Euripides)
very similar to xi); B also has a more florid version of zeta, but it too features angular
transitions in the middle section.
Rho: unligatured rho has straight descender, or a slight curve right, or even a flourish to
left, but when ligatured the descender of rho forms a smooth curve to join the middle
bottom of next letter.
Sigma: lunate sigmas of regular size (compared to closed loops of hand A).
Omega: tends not to be symmetrical, and often has an extra oblique length on the finish
of the right side (turned back over the letter).
Accents: less flamboyant acutes and graves than those of A.
Hand B may have done the rubrication (the initials in both lemma and scholion, reference
symbols).
The Distribution of Work between A and B
Since previous discussions have not given many details about this, except what can be
inferred from Schwartz’s use of A1 (my VB), I now record my judgment of the
distribution of the writing of V by A and B.
In all three triad plays and on 117v (where the arg. Med. begins), the text and main
scholia blocks are generally the work of Hand A.
Hecuba: Hand B’s contributions are the following: on fol. 12r, sch. Hec. 483, 484, 491,
497 (all entirely B); on 16v, marginal sch. 707 λείπει, (part of 709?), 710 appear to be by
B; on 20v, sch. 1156; on fol. 22v, sch. 1236, 1270
Orestes: on the lower half of 24v, in the space left vacant after the arg. Or. were
complete, the main hand added miscellaneous scholia; at the end of the scholia block, A
used only half the line; B added there a short grammatical note about aphairesis, synkope,
and apokope; on 29v, the gloss ὁ θάνατος was written above ὁ πότμος by B, but A
added the rest of the annotation to the right, εἰ μὴ γὰρ κτλ. [This is not yet a complete
listing for the Orestes pages.]
Phoenissae: fol. 67v, sch. 31 the lemma is by A, but the scholion itself is added by B (last
on page, but there was ample room if A had wanted to write it); on 68r, sch. 33 and sch.
36; fol. 70v: sch. 111 (one word), sch. 114 (individual words and phrases, including a s.l.
addition; in sch. 114 only εἰσὶ καὶ look like VB, μεναι looks integral to its word); fol.
71r: sch. 130 (entire, added at end of block, lemma and all); fol. 72r: sch. 151 (lemma
perhaps VA), sch. 155, sch. 156, sch. 157, sch. 159, sch. 160 [This is not yet a complete
listing for the Phoenissae pages.]
After the triad plays, B appears more often. On folios not mentioned in the following
listings, text and scholia block are by A (B may add glosses).
Medea
118r: text by B, scholia in block by A, interlinear glosses by B; cursive additions by V3
D. J. Mastronarde, DRAFT, August 2013
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The Hands in Vaticanus graecus 909 (V of Euripides)
118v: text and start of sch. block by B, one schol. by A; glosses B and a few V3
119r: text and scholia at top and bottom of block by B, scholia in middle of block by A;
glosses by B, V3, and possibly one by V2 on penultimate line
119v: text B, sch. block A; glosses B, V3, possibly one V2
120v: text A, sch. block B; glosses B and V3
121r: text and scholia B
121v: all B, with some V3 glosses and maybe Vrec
122r-125v: all B
126r :Med. 275-286 by B, but 287-290 by A, and the only scholion on this page is by A
142r: last scholia in block (partial sch. 837, sch. 835), are crossed out by rubricator; fuller
version of 837 is on verso; I’m not sure about 835 because the image I have is poor here.
143r: text A, sch. all B except for first two lines at top
143v: text B, no sch., last two lines (Med. 899-900) are crossed out in red because 144r
starts with 899 (by A)
147v: text A, sch. block part A, but more than half B
148r: all B except one sch. at top by A
148v-149v: all B
151v: all B
152r: text A, sch. B
152v: text A except last line Med. 1254 by B; sch. B
153r-v: all B
154r: text A, sparse sch. B
154v: text and sch. B
Hippolytus
157v: remainder of arg. and opening lines of text A, sch. B
158r-159v: all B
160r: B text, but sch. A
168v: text A except for last two lines by B, Hipp. 403-404, sch. at top A, at side B
169r: text B except for last two lines by A, Hipp. 421-422; sch. apparently A
173r: text A except last three lines by B, Hipp. 565-567; sch. B
173v-174r: all B
175v: text A except last two lines by B, Hipp. 663-664; sch. B
176r: all B
178v: text A except last line by B, Hipp. 757; sch. B
179r: all B
182r: text A, sch. B
182v: all B
183r: text B except last two lines by A, Hipp. 930-931, sch. A
185v-186v: text A, sch. B
187r-187v: all B
188r: text B except last two lines, Hipp. 1122-1123; sch. A
Alcestis
199r-208v: all B, including some sparse sch. Many pages have been trimmed down in
conservation to just the text column; presumably they had no scholia, since the surviving
D. J. Mastronarde, DRAFT, August 2013
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The Hands in Vaticanus graecus 909 (V of Euripides)
top and bottom areas are without scholia, and the conservator would probably have
attempted to keep damaged margins if there had been writing on them.
216v-220v: all B, incl. sparse scholia
Andromache
228r: at the top the last lines of Alcestis are by A; the bottom two-thirds of the page have
hyp. Andr. by B
228v: dram. pers. and start of text and sch. Andr. by B
229r-230r: text B, sch. B except one sch. (last) on 230r by A
259r-261r: text A, sch. B
Troades
261v-263v: Tro. hyp and text and sch. all by B (all the rest of play from 264r on by A)
Rhesus
I detect no sign of B (except for some glosses) anywhere in the surviving pages
containing parts of Rhesus.
The Later Hands
Hands A and B I take to be early or very early Palaeologan hands. Many have claimed
the manuscript may be “Planudean” and date it 1280-1300, but Nigel Wilson judges it
may be as early as 1250-1280, and there are arguments against Di Benedetto’s view that
some scholia unique to V reflect Planudes’ teaching. The other hands that added glosses
in V are far more informal and cursive and similar to the glossing hands found in the
recentiores of the very late 13th and early 14th centuries or to even later hands. In
editions of Euripides it is sometimes hard to be sure which later hand is intended (V2 in
one edition may be the same hand labelled V3 in another). The following are the
observations I have made about the glossation.
I use V2 for the hand that uses a blacker ink or a medium brown ink (but also yellowish
brown ink sometimes), a cruder script with fuzzier strokes and wider letter-spacing, but
not as fully cursive as the next one described. For examples see Hec. 85 ἀλίαστος,
where, after the original gloss ἄταρβος ἀμετακίνητος ἄφοβος, V2 adds ἄφευκτος; or
Hec. 93 the gloss τῆς κορυφῆς τοῦ τύμβου. At other times, however, this hand seems
to be smaller and more cursive and thus more similar to V3. See the example at Or. 480
ἀστραπὰς (fol. 37v), where in grayer ink we have διὰ τὸ ὄμματα αἱματώδη at normal
mid height above the line (by V2 in my opinion), and then V3 squeezes in below that
τουτέστι τὰς νοσερὰς ἐκφλογώσεις [unless this is same hand working at different
times]. Or see Or. 152 (fol. 29r), where V2 placed the gloss διὰ χρόνου above χρόνια
(but starting above the middle of that word, because the space above the first letters was
already taken by the rubricator’s reference symbol), and later in the line καὶ κοιμᾶται
above εὐνάζεται; then V3 added a longer annotation, starting right after V2’s χρόνου
and splitting the last word ἐκοι/μήθη around V2’s καὶ κοιμᾶται [again, unless this is the
same hand working at different times].
D. J. Mastronarde, DRAFT, August 2013
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The Hands in Vaticanus graecus 909 (V of Euripides)
I use V3 for a hand that writes sometimes in a somewhat larger script and sometimes in an
extremely small one, depending on space, but in a very informal and irregular style, with
backwards-sloping epsilon, the tail of rho turned up under loop, with downward serif at
end; e.g. Hec. 38 (fol. 3r) ἀπὸ τοῦ τὰ σῖτα αἴρειν κυρίως ἐπὶ τῶν πεζῶν added above
πᾶν στράτευμ’ ἑλληνικόν; probably also καινοπρεπὲς σχῆμα, somewhat more regular
because squeezed carefully into the space above εὐθύνοντες ἐναλίαν and below the
earlier glosses (V2 κιν??????? ?ἐκτοπίζοντας, VA θαλασσίαν).
To give an example, I would assign the various supralinear additions on fol. 36r on the
line Or. 429 as follows: the rubricator placed a reference symbol above οὐδ’; VB wrote
the gloss οὐκ ἐκαθάρθης above ἥγνισαι; V2 added the gloss διὰ, above σὸν and below
VB’s gloss, and to the right of VB’s gloss V2 added another gloss ἤτοι ὑπὸ τοῦ
συγγενικοῦ φόνου, starting above αἷμα; finally V3 squeezed in below V2’s gloss ἤγουν
τὸ μητρικόν σου, starting above the μ of αἷμα (because the accent took up the space
above αι). The ductus of these last two glosses is fairly similar, but V2’s is in the more
yellowish ink.
There are some glosses where is it impossible to tell whether V2 or V3 was responsible,
and these are recorded as V2/3. As mentioned parenthetically above, one must bear in
mind the possibility that these two might be the same scribe, working at different times.
The difficulty of relying on ink color and appearance is illustrated by the difficulty of a
passage like Or. 546 (fol. 39v): an annotation in the right margin consists of two
sentences, in different styles of writing and with different thickness of the stroke; the first
sentence (διάνοια λυτικὴ τῆς προβολῆς καὶ τῶν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ἄχρι τέλους) appears to
be the hand I usually call V3, while the second sentence, using the connective γάρ to add
to the first sentence (λέγει γὰρ οὐχι δύσνους ἀλλὰ τιμ[ωρῶν] τῷ πατρί) looks like
what I usually call V2. Another example of uncertainty: (fol. 3r) Hec. 42 has above the
line in very thin script ἡ ψυχὴ προνοεῖται τὰ αὐτίκα μέλλοντα γενέσθαι, to which a
later, sloppy hand in blacker ink adds ὡς ἀυλότερον καὶ θειότερον και καθαρώτερον:
I think the initial note is probably by VA, while the addition is probably V3 (but this
phrase is sloppier and has much wider spacing of letters that this hand a few lines earlier
above Hec. 38).
Some characteristics of the cursive hands in Orestes:
Beta: with two clubs.
Delta: with reduced loop, even flattened so as to have no white space, and the upper part
tilted right and sometimes short, producing a strong similarity to sigma.
Epsilon: backward sloping epsilon when not in ligature.
ει ligature: upright, with its loop sometimes small.
ερ ligature: with smooth arch, open rho loop.
Theta: loop often closed, flat.
Nu: angular.
Omicron: may be joined to pi, either suspended from the horizontal or above it
Rho: when not in ligature, with lower stroke turning horizontal under letter with serif at
end
D. J. Mastronarde, DRAFT, August 2013
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The Hands in Vaticanus graecus 909 (V of Euripides)
Sigma: σθ may have a very flattened sigma loop.
Tau: τοῦ formed with tau and above it a fountain-like abbreviation of ου and the
circumflex
Regular use of diaeresis on iota and upsilon
These characteristics are common to notes that are in various shades from grayish to light
brown to yellowish brown; when written small, there is usually little basis for
distinguishing different hands.
These hands (V2V3) also provide some annotation outside the triad plays.
There are occasionally notes by hands that appear to be even later, and for these in the
triad plays I use simply Vrec. Outside the triad there is a later hand that stands out from the
others, featuring a more florid and larger script, often in a blacker ink, with loops that are
much more open and long flourishes added to some letters, like phi.
D. J. Mastronarde, DRAFT, August 2013
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